This invention relates to an acidic, aqueous dispersion containing at least one thickener, which may be used either directly as or as a base for a viscous additive to pasty, storage-stable and nonsegregating food mixture containing apart from water and thickener(s) as well as, optionally, other common components at least one edible acid, further to a process for producing said dispersion and also to the use of said dispersion as a food mixture or in preparing food mixtures, more particularly acid brines or marinades, sauces and salad dressings.
Preparing salad dressings is known to be a relatively troublesome and costly procedure, a challenge to a cook's skills in which many a man or woman has failed, and requires a stock of additives, more particularly (fresh) herbs, which even with modern technical equipment and purchasing facilities frequently is impossible to maintain at least in the normal household.
For this reason there is a great demand for industrially pre-prepared salad dressings and/or concentrates which the food industry has for years been trying to meet without being able to solve the problem in a fully satisfactory way.
This may be explained by the fact that products of this type have to fulfill numerous, in part contradictory, requirements.
Salad sauces or dressings, and/or concentrates thereof which alone can be considered for industrial-scale production, must or should show particularly the following characteristics which are difficult to meet, at least in their entirety. They must or should:
(a) contain at least one edible acid. PA1 (b) contain water-soluble components which are present, at any rate in the finished dressing, at least partially in aqueous solution, as well as water-insoluble components which are solid, more or less fine-grain and, optionally, liquid, more particularly chopped fresh herbal plant parts. PA1 (c) be dilutable and/or miscible with cold water. PA1 (d) be storage-stable and nonsegregating under any commonly existing storage conditions, more particularly when stored in coolers of any type, as well as when occasionally frozen and/or exposed to elevated temperatures of up to 40.degree. C. and more, as may occur in warehouses and during transportation.
To solve these problems a number of different methods have been applied in the past, none of which has proved really successful.
One recommended solution relates to (already) solid, mostly granular mixtures, some of which prove in fact useful in preparing acidic brines and sauerbraten sauces, whereas no products of this type have become known which are (even passably suitable for salad dressings). Apart from other difficulties encountered in connection with this kind of dry products, problems have hitherto been seen notably in the limited choice of dry edible acids capable of imparting sufficient flavor to salad dressings and in the incorporation of fresh herbs.
The solutions known to have been proposed or tried out thus relate essentially to aqueous, more or less viscous, acidic dispersions of the above type, in which choosing a suitable thickener or thickening system presents the main problem.
Essentially two ways are described in the relevant prior art, i.e. thickening with oil emulsions and/or fat emulsions (products made on the basis of mayonnaise, hereinafter briefly referred to as "mayonnaise dressings"), and thickening with edible (carrier) colloid-forming substances or mixtures of substances on the basis of proteins and/or carbohydrates, such as starch modifications, cellulose derivatives and vegetable gums, none of which has hitherto led to a fully satisfactory result.
Mayonnaise dressings, which were the first salad dressings to be produced on an industrial scale and which still make up the majority of salad dressings sold on the market, apart from other disadvantages, are unsatisfactory, particularly because all of them tend to "bleeding", i.e. to giving off oil, in some cases along with an aqueous phase, especially when stored at temperatures not virtually constant, and because the oil and/or fat they contain saponifies and rancidifies quickly in the (prevailing) acid medium, especially under access of air (which is virtually unavoidable). Problems are encountered also when diluting with water, other problems are posed by the inevitably high fat content and by the fact that low calorie salad dressings cannot be prepared from them and that an addition of electrolytes for subsequent seasoning frequently leads to sudden segregation because the emulsion breaks.
The shortcomings of the ready-to-serve salad dressings with carrier colloid thickeners, while being of a different kind, are by no means less serious.
Their main disadvantage may be seen in the fact that in spite of a large number of tests no colloid(al) carrier substance or mixture of such substances on the basis of protein and/or carbohydrates has so far been found which may be used in food without hesitation, ensures a sufficient degree of nonsegregation at all temperatures commonly applied for the purpose and does not gel irreversibly when stored under normal conditions, especially in case of incidental undercooling. This combination of characteristics, in spite of assertions to the contrary, is not achieved even with the most complicated thickener mixes described in prior art (OSes 23 11 403 and 27 53 443).